WWE Hall of Famer Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat was in attendance for AEW’s 2025 Blood & Guts edition of Dynamite, and afterward he offered some candid thoughts on the women’s cage match during a conversation with Bill Apter.
Steamboat praised the effort of the wrestlers but admitted the match didn’t resonate with him:
“God bless those girls… but I didn’t care for it. I don’t know if it was just too much. They had 16 girls in there or something like that, there’s just too much going on.”
He explained that the chaotic multi-ring environment made the action difficult to follow:
“In one corner two girls are doing something, in the middle two or three girls are doing something, and in the other ring two or three girls are doing something. You couldn’t focus on anything because there was just so much going on, and for me it’s hard to react.”
Steamboat also critiqued the pre-show matches, pointing specifically to what he felt was a lack of structure and ring psychology:
“I watched the opening matches… and I didn’t like the work. Much less of not having much ring psychology, but it was very, very loose to me. Maybe because I’m looking from the outside knowing what I know, but it looked too choreographed.”
Steamboat’s comments reflect a more traditionalist perspective on wrestling presentation, even as AEW continues to showcase larger-scale, fast-paced matches across its programming.
